More
than a dozen business leaders from throughout the Tech Valley Region
brought their sharpened pencils and sharpest ideas together on
Monday as they met with faculty, students and administrators of Tech
Valley High School to focus their attention on the school's
curriculum.

The business leaders, who ranged from Capstone Inc. President Amy
Johnson to National Grid Economic Developer Linda Hill, Albany-Colonie
Chamber President Mark Eagan and Kelsey Kohler, of Momentive,
examined what and how the school is teaching students from across
the region and identified ways that they, their companies, and their
business counterparts could be of assistance.

The meeting was called together by the
Tech Valley High Business Alliance, which has the mission of supporting and advising the
school's operating board, administration, staff
and students to ensure a strong linkage
and ongoing interaction between the real world of work in an
emerging technologies community and the school's curriculum and
activities.

The alliance primarily focuses on developing and implementing strategies and
tactics to connect Tech Valley High School with the Tech Valley
economy.

At Monday's meeting, faculty and students presented projects the
school currently uses in its curriculum, including Inventing
America, in which students look at technology and progress and how
progress has impacted the region locally.

Additionally,
the business leaders looked at other projects, including those that
explored campaign finance reform, the mapping of Latin America and
an algebra project that involves the construction of parabolic
figures. The projects presented could use updates or "tweaks" from
the business leaders, faculty members said, such as a more 'real
world' application of physics knowledge in the algebra project and a
new focus of campaign finance reform.

Future meetings will be scheduled with the goal of keeping the
school's curriculum relevant.

Anyone interested in joining the Business Alliance should
contact Denise Zieske at 862-4958.